Abstract:

This paper reports the results of perception tests administered
to speakers of Japanese as part of a cross-language investigation
of how voice quality and f0 combine in the signalling of
affect. Three types of synthesised stimuli were presented: (1)
`VQ only? involving variations in voice quality and a neutral
f0; (2) `f0 only?, with different f0 contours and modal voice;
and (3) combined `VQ + f0? stimuli, where combinations of
(1) and (2) were employed. Overall, stimuli involving voice
quality variation (1 and 3) proved to be most consistently
associated with affect. In series (2) only stimuli with very
high f0 yielded high affective ratings. Some striking differences
emerge in the ratings obtained for Japanese subjects
compared to those obtained for speakers of Hiberno-English
[7], suggesting that the generation of expressive speech
synthesis will need to be sensitive to language specific uses of
the voice.